National Library News July/August 1999 Vol. 31, nos. 7-8

Scientific Libraries Reporting to the National Union Catalogue

In February 1997, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) advised the Canadian libraries whose serial holdings were listed in ULSSCL (Union List of Scientific Serials in Canadian Libraries) that CISTI would withdraw, as of April 1, 1997, from union list activity. CISTI staff, and later National Library of Canada (NLC) staff, contacted all these libraries to make arrangements for them to begin reporting their scientific serial holdings to NLC. At the time, about one-third of these libraries already had arrangements for reporting their other holdings to the NLC’s National Union Catalogue (see National Library News, March/April 1998).

Over the past two years, NLC staff have been working to accommodate the former CISTI reporting libraries. Of 317 libraries listed in ULSSCL at the end of March 1997, 126 or 40 percent have reported between April 1997 and the end of March 1999. Eighty-eight of the CISTI libraries currently report via MARA (machine-readable accessions) and the other 38 use the Update Locations function available through Access AMICUS. These 126 reporting libraries include 53 scientific libraries that had not previously reported to NLC. The total of scientific libraries reporting serial holdings to NLC is 163, including 39 libraries that had not reported to CISTI. During the last two years, 412 Canadian libraries reported serials in all disciplines.

The status of the remaining 60 percent of the former CISTI reporting libraries is as follows. Fifty-eight are expected to report via MARA. NLC staff are following up with another 24 libraries that we anticipate will use Access AMICUS to maintain their serial holdings. Fifty-four libraries have, for various reasons, not yet decided whether to report or not. Twenty-nine libraries have definitely decided not to report. Another 26 libraries are obsolete or have closed; and their holdings have therefore been removed from AMICUS.

While the original initiative was to accommodate scientific serials, NLC has added monograph holdings from 12 scientific libraries including Ryerson Polytechnic and the National Aviation Museum, and via A-G Canada, 10 retrospective files (University of Toronto, Université de Montréal, University of Manitoba and its medical library, Université de Sherbrooke and its science library, the Osler Library at McGill, the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Museum of Science and Technology, and the Canadian Space Agency).

NLC will continue its outreach into the scientific library community, i.e., to follow up with lapsed reporters and those that have not yet switched their reporting to NLC. The National Library remains committed to maintaining effective support for resource-sharing activities in Canada and invites Canadian libraries to actively participate.

For more information, please contact

Emilie Lowenberg
Chief, Union Catalogue Division
National Library of Canada
395 Wellington Street,
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0N4
Telephone: (819) 997-7990
Fax: (819) 953-0291
TTY: (613) 992-6969
E-mail: emilie.lowenberg@nlc-bnc.ca